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Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) is a generic language that is often extended by researchers, either for dealing with processes of specific domains or for improving the language itself. The purpose of this paper is to present a literature review that aims to determine the current state of the art of BPMN extensions and identify the gaps that should be filled in this research area.

For a comprehensive and effective analysis, a systematic literature review was conducted. After the collection and filtering of papers, 52 extensions were retained to be thoroughly examined and compared according to a set of criteria including objective, targeted domain, conformity to the extension mechanism, demonstration, implementation, etc.

The representation of the results in the form of tables and graphs allowed the authors to deduce several positive points on the extensions as their demonstration through concrete examples. On the other hand, the authors have observed several shortcomings and suggested recommendations for addressing them.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the literature review is the only one that evaluates and compares all BPMN extensions over the last four years, based on several criteria covering different aspects. Furthermore, the authors were able to verify the conformity of extensions as they were published after the introduction of the BPMN extension mechanism by the Object Management Group.

The aim of the article is to propose BPMN extensions that facilitate the modeling of Clinical Pathways in a way that enables for various groups of users, the transfer of a much wider range of information in the form of process models without compromising their readability and usefulness.

The paper uses the design science research methodology (DSRM) and covers phases of a design-oriented research project extending BPMN notation for clinical pathway modeling.

The article proposes extensions of BPMN in 5 areas, enabling standardization of the description of business processes of different natures and complexity and in turn meeting the needs and requirements of modeling clinical pathways and, more broadly speaking, knowledge-intensive business processes (kiBPs) in general. As shown by the evaluation carried out among medical personnel, the proposed extensions allow for the readable transfer of a considerably larger body of information relevant to the planned, conducted and assessed therapy (kiBPs) than the current BPMN 2.0 standard.

The BPMN extensions proposed in the article fill the gaps in this notation and do not require users to know many notations, which in practice is unrealistic. Defined extensions to the BPMN specification makes it possible to standardise the description of processes of different natures and levels of complexity. In this way, both simplified models (and views of models) dedicated to users unfamiliar with BPMN and models (or views) using advanced possibilities provided by BPMN can be based on one standard, even if they use only a small part of its possibilities.

The authors use the extension mechanism provided by the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) to define roles, which allows roles to be fully aligned with the BPMN standard. The authors describe how a pattern can be defined in terms of roles and present the formal semantics of pattern realization and refinement to support systematic reuse of patterns in business process development.

It is widely agreed that the use of business process patterns improves the efficiency and quality of business process development. However, few techniques are available to describe business process patterns at an appropriate level of abstraction to facilitate the reuse of patterns. To address this, this paper presents the role-based Business Process Model and Notation (R-BPMN), an extension of BPMN for abstract modeling of business process patterns based on a novel notion of role.

The authors apply R-BPMN in case studies for pattern realization and refinement and discuss tool support via an existing tool. The case studies demonstrate the practical benefits of R-BPMN in capturing pattern variability and facilitating pattern reuse.

The findings imply a potential impact of R-BPMN on practical benefits when it is supported at the metamodel level in tool development.

This study addresses the need for abstract modeling of process patterns at the metamodel level, which facilitates the formalization of pattern variability and tool development to support various realizations of process patterns at the model level.

Despite corporate communications having an immense impact on corporate success, there is a lack of dedicated techniques for their management and visualization. A potential strategy is to apply business process management (BPM) approach with business process model and notation (BPMN) modeling techniques.

The goal of this study was to gain empirical insights into the cognitive effectiveness of BPMN-based corporate communications modeling. To this end, experimental research was performed in which subjects tested two modeling notations – standardized BPMN conversation diagrams and a BPMN extension with corporate communications-specific concepts.

Standard conversation diagrams were demonstrated to be more time-efficient for designing and interpreting diagrams. However, the subjects made significantly fewer mistakes when interpreting the diagrams modeled in the BPMN extension. Subjects also evolved positive perceptions toward the proposed extension.

BPMN-based corporate communications modeling may be applied to organizations to depict how formal communications are or should be performed consistently, effectively and transparently by following and integrating with BPM approaches and modeling techniques.

The paper provides empirical insights into the cognitive effectiveness of corporate communications modeling based on BPMN and positions the corresponding models into typical process architecture.

Security requirements play an important role in software development. These can be specified both in enterprise architecture models and in business processes. Enterprises increasingly carry out larger amounts of business processes where security plays a major role. Business processes including security can be automatically obtained from enterprise architecture models by applying a model-driven architecture approach, through a CIM to CIM transformation. The aim of this article is to present the specification of transformation rules for the correspondence between enterprise architecture and business process model elements focusing on security.

This work utilizes motivational aspects of the ArchiMate language to model security in the business layer of enterprise architectures. Next, a set of transformation rules defined with the Atlas Transformation Language are utilized to obtain the correspondence of the enterprise architecture elements in a business process, modelled with a security extension of BPMN.

A total of 19 transformation rules have been defined. These rules are more complex than element to element relations, as they take into consideration the context of the elements for establishing the correspondence. Additionally, the prototype of a tool that allows the automatic transformation between both models has been developed.

The results of this work demonstrate the possibility to tackle complex transformations between both models, as previous literature focuses on semantic correspondences. Moreover, the obtained models can be of use for software developers applying the model-driven approach.

A major problem of business process modelling languages that primarily express the flow of activities is the limited support for actor modelling provided by rigid swimlane concepts. Thus, the aim of this work is to present a general approach for actor modelling in business processes that supports different layers of abstraction, thereby increasing the expressiveness and avoiding inaccuracy and redundancy.

The proposed actor modelling approach supports task-based assignment of actors and roles based on deontic logic and speech act theory. The semantics of the approach is formally specified based on abstract state machines.

The new approach for actor modelling is more expressive and provides the possibility to reduce the structural complexity of the process flow as shown by a case study and a comparison of an ordinary business process modelling approach using swimlanes and the actor modelling approach based on the workflow resource patterns. In particular, the evaluation showed that important patterns such as separation of duties and retain familiar are only supported by the actor modelling approach.

The research is to some degree in the context of the business process model and notation as a representative of a business process modelling language using swimlanes.

Different gradations concerning the extent to which actor modelling is supported make the new approach outstanding for modelling activities, actors, and constraints in an expressive and legible way.

The need to flexibly react to changing demands and to cost-efficiently manage customized production even for lot size of one requires a dynamic and holistic integration of service-based processes within and across enterprises of the value chain. In this context, this paper aims at presenting ODERU, the authors’ novel pragmatic approach for automatically implementing service-based manufacturing processes at design and runtime within a cloud-based elastic manufacturing platform.

ODERU relies on a set of semantic annotations of business process models encoded into an extension of the business process model and notation (BPMN) 2.0 standard. Leveraging the paradigms of semantic SOA and XaaS, ODERU integrates pattern-based semantic composition of process service plans with QoS-based optimization based on multi-objective constraint optimization problem solving.

The successful validation of ODERU in two industrial use cases for maintenance process optimization and automotive production in the European project CREMA revealed its usefulness for service-based process optimization in general and for significant cost reductions in maintenance in particular.

ODERU provides a pragmatic and flexible solution to optimal service composition with the following three main advantages: full integration of semantic service selection and composition with QoS-based optimization; executability of the generated optimal process service plans by an execution environment as they include service assignments, data flow (variable bindings) and optimal variable assignments; and support of fast replanning in a single model and plan.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the relationships between process modeling and Industry 4.0, the strategic themes and the most used process modeling language in smart factories. The study also presents the growth of the field of study worldwide, the perspectives, main challenges, trends and suggestions for future works.

To do this, a science mapping was performed using the software SciMAT, supported by VOS viewer.

The results show that the Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN), Unified Modelling Language (UML) and Petri Net are the most relevant languages to smart manufacturing. The authors also highlighted the need to develop new languages or extensions capable of representing the dynamism, interoperability and multiple technologies of smart factories.

It was possible to identify the most used process modeling languages in smart environments and understand how these languages assist control and manage smart processes. Besides, the authors highlighted challenges, new perspectives and the need for future works in the field.

The objective of the work is to analyze the impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) concepts and associated technologies in the framework of organizations and the management of their processes and how event orientation, as well as the structure of said business processes, can play an important role in this new organizational model. The main contribution of this work is to present a conceptualization of the research, identify approaches and challenges that require further study, and as a result, a proposal for future research.

The methodology comprises a qualitative analysis using secondary data. The approach relies on searches of scientific papers conducted in well-known databases, identifying research work around the IoT and Industry 4.0 applied to business process management. Based on the identified papers, the authors selected the most relevant and the latest publications, and categorized their contributions and findings based on open and selective coding. In total, the analysis is based on 95 papers that were selected and analyzed in depth.

The results of this research allow analyzing and ordering the existing contributions around Industry 4.0 and its impact on current organizations. The proposed conceptualization was derived from the analysis of the state of the research and identifies four categories: (1) improvements caused by Industry 4.0 and its impact on inter-organizational relations, (2) new architectural models and infrastructure of remote resources, their movement from the cloud to the edge and its effect on business processes, (3) context-aware concepts brought to business process management (BPM) linked to unstructured business processes and (4) complex event processing as a possible means for business processes sensitive to IoT signals.

The construction of current software ecosystems is strongly affected by the variety of information sources that feed them, as well as their volume. In addition, business processes represent organizations internally and are challenged to transcend the limits of companies due to the mentioned changes in software ecosystems. Industry 4.0 in conjunction with BPM re-defines the business process management paradigm and leads them to acquire the dynamism and sensitivity to the context that they usually did not have, as well as force them to move toward distributed platforms.

This paper assesses the state of the art in Industry 4.0 and business process management. The area can be defined as the intersection of two bigger areas highly relevant for organizations; on the one hand, the management and execution of business processes; and on the other hand, new conceptual, technological and methodological challenges to information systems that have to become more sensitive to event processing and also have to consume a large volume of data permanently and ubiquitously.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate business process management (BPM) and accounting on a conceptual level in order to account for the economic implications of process-state changes in process design-time and process run-time.

The paper adopts a design science research paradigm. The research, grounded in an “events” approach to accounting theory, builds on the REA accounting model that has been adapted for the design of a process accounting model (PAM).

The paper presents a PAM that can be used to structure event records in process-aware information systems (PAIS) to enable process-oriented accounting. The PAM is specified as a light weight data structure that is intended for the integration of PAIS and accounting information systems.

As this paper is technical in nature, more research is needed to evaluate more thoroughly its approach in naturalistic settings.

The PAM can support traditional accounting approaches, and because of the adopted events approach, it readily supports use cases related to real-time analytics in BPM and accounting.

The PAM presents a novel approach to integrating BPM and accounting. The novelty of this approach lies in its use of event records to document flows of economic resources.